We are thankful to be home in Japan. It was an especially long flight yesterday--2 hours to Detroit and then almost 13 hours to Tokyo. Ughh! Anyway, thanks to Benadryl, we got a good night sleep and are ready to go--Akihiro off to work and myself, well, I am enjoying the moments before our four 50 pound suitcases arrive from the delivery service (lugging those suitcases on 3 different trains he 2+ hours from the airport is not pleasant--especially when you can hardly keep your eyes open!).
A few days in NYC sure made me thankful to live in Japan! I think I would rather live in Japan than NYC--no offence, New Yorkers! We did enjoy some of the sights there, though. There is a really sobering memorial center for Ground Zero. It has charred pieces of airplane windows, and other remains from the tragedy. We also went to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. I'm not too much on art, but I am sure if you like art, you would love this place--we got lost just looking for the cafeteria! Tsuyoshi and Yuko's graduation had some very interesting speeches and we are proud of them for graduating from the second best law school in the U.S.! We celebrated by going to a New York style Japanese restaurant. It was very delicious, but interesting to see the blending of two styles! One afternoon, we visited Mt. Sinai Medical School of Medicine's simulated patient laboratory. It was very interesting, but made Akihiro realize the great differences between Japanese medical education and U.S. medical education. Opening a center in Japan looks rather daunting, but we'll see! Akihiro's dad has an option for him and actually he has many other options that came up just before we came to Japan. We'll just have to wait and see where the Lord leads us! Again, we appreciate your prayers.